Let it be
by TheCheeseman
Summary: Sometimes it's hard to have magic. Sometimes it's even harder to walk away, and let it be.


Title: Let it be  
By TheCheeseman  
  
Summary: PG. Sometimes it is hard to have magic. Sometimes it is even harder to just walk away, and let it be.  
  
Note: The Characters are mine, except Dumbledore, who belongs to the marvellous JK… I'm sorry for this story, its just my muse has been bugging me to write it.  
  
()()  
  
"Good Morning Madam, Welcome to Titanic. And you Madam, welcome to Titanic."  
  
The ladies, the oldest not more than 21, the younger 17, smiled at the attendant, and followed him down a corridor.  
  
Titanic was the most spectacular thing that the ladies had ever seen. It was grand, and richly furnished, and, when they were shown to their rooms, they were far beyond their expectations.  
  
"Is that all, ladies?" The attendant asked them, as they entered the sitting room after a full tour of their apartments in First class.  
  
"Yes, thank you."  
  
"If you should need anything, ask a passing maid to call for me."  
  
"And you name is, sir?" asked the eldest.  
  
"Kent, Ma'am, John Kent."  
"We shall ask for you," said the other lady, in a small voice, "thank you, Mr Kent."  
  
When he had left, the eldest girl spun round, excited.  
  
"Laud!" she cried, "How wonderful this shall be! First class passengers treated like royalty, we shall be. Are you not pleased, Emma?"  
  
Emma looked out of the window onto one of the decks.  
  
"Look, Nicole, look, we're right at the front. No one else has such a good view."  
  
Nicole clapped her hands together with glee.   
  
"I shouldn't be surprised. We paid an awful lot of muggle money to get on here!"  
  
Just as she said it, Nicole's eyes moved swiftly round the room, as if to check for eavesdroppers. When she found none, she turned back to Emma, smiling.  
  
"Do not be so dull, Emma dear, smile." she said, patting her carefully done deep brown hair, "We are going to America."  
  
"I have a bad feeling about this ship, Nic," said Emma wearily, "maybe we shouldn't be on here at all. My divination - "  
  
"You and your divination make trouble!" said her companion stubbornly, "now we must be ready for lunch."  
  
After dressing for lunch in elegant dresses, Nicole and Emma left their cabin and came out onto the Grand Staircase. Emma marvelled at it; Nicole brushed it off vaguely acknowledging that it was "nice craftsmanship."  
  
"The Misses Phoenix, I presume?"  
  
A middle-aged woman with dark hair and a rather ugly yellow hat had joined them at their table.  
  
"Yes," said Nicole, her voice sounding polite and nice, the way she put on for strangers, "And whom might you be?"  
  
"Mrs Agnes Peters. Now, which of you nice girls is Nicole?"  
  
Nicole smiled and nodded at her, and said in a sickly sweet voice, "I am Nicole Phoenix, and this is Emma Phoenix."  
  
"Pleasure. Now, tell me, you haven't any friends to dine with tonight, have you?"  
  
Nicole's smile vanished, and she shook her head. Agnes just laughed.  
  
"Well, you're welcome to come and sit with me and mine. It's just a few of us. Lord and Lady Kingston, Sir Henry Maid and his wife, oh what is her name, yes, Yvonne. Oh, and of course two very eligible bachelors, Mr Ethson and Mr Doyle. They'd do very well for you two. Perhaps Mr Doyle would be better for Miss Phoenix, but I am sure that he will find Miss Emma equally charming."  
  
Emma found herself biting her lip, to stop herself. Nicole, however, seen unaffected by this thing that came so close to home, and continued to converse with Mrs Peters for the whole lunch.  
  
"I am ashamed of you, Emma!" Nicole cried, as they went back to their cabin at around 3pm, "why could you not even be civil to Mrs Peters?"  
  
"I'm sorry," Emma said in a small voice.  
  
"So you should be."  
  
"It was just… when she spoke of husbands, I - "  
  
"You must say nothing, Emma," said Nicole, her voice scathing, "nothing."  
  
Emma looked up at her, and said quietly, "You'll never forgive me, will you?" Nicole said nothing. "What I did, I did for you Nic, and no one else. Charles was nothing. You deserved better."  
  
"I loved Charles, Emma," her sister replied, "and you stopped me marrying him. You - you walked in on our wedding day, for goodness sake! You ran down the aisle and said everything he'd done in front of my entire family and his. I have never been so ashamed. It's why we're going to America."  
  
"But Professor Dumbledore said - "  
  
"I don't care what he said! He is a Transfiguration Teacher who will amount to nothing. You told me, ON MY WEDDING DAY, that you'd been with him. That he'd been unfaithful. I'll never forgive you for that."  
  
"I'm sorry."  
  
"Sorry will never help, Emma, not ever."  
  
They sat in silence the rest of the afternoon, until the evening.  
  
**  
  
The days went by in much the same way; Nicole and Emma spent much time with Messrs Ethson and Doyle, and it turned out that Doyle had a certain partiality for Emma, much to Nicole's annoyance. Doyle was brainy, witty and handsome, and Ethson, whom Nicole had to spend the chief of her time with, was ugly and stupid.  
  
It was one night a few days into the voyage, when they were suddenly awoken by a knock at the door. It was the attendant, Mr John Kent, requesting that they put on life jackets and go to the boat deck immediately.  
  
Nicole tried to refuse, but Emma pulled her into some clothes, and put on her life jacket, and, just in case, Emma pocketed her wand.  
  
It was freezing on the boat deck, and they had begun to sort out the lifeboats.  
  
Emma looked around. The band was playing; there was animated talk coming from all directions, the gentle lap of the sea.  
  
Suddenly, there was a great flash of white light, and Emma opened her eyes to see a different scene. She looked around. People were running about, some with screaming children, and holding onto the rails. She looked down. She was up to her ankles in water. They were sinking.  
  
The green light flashed again and she seemed to be floating above the ocean, with no Titanic in sight. Instead, she saw hundreds of people, men women and children, frantically flailing around in the water below. She could hear shouts for help, and screams, and cries for mercy and death. She glanced over the horizon, and there, in the distance, were several lifeboats, less than half full, not even trying to come back to help.  
  
The third flash of light came and she was back on the boat deck, Nicole by her side. She grabbed her arm, and looked at Nicole with sincere eyes.  
  
"Nic, we have to do something, the ship is sinking. I just saw - hundreds of people are going to die."  
"Emma, why rubbish are you talking?"  
  
"Please," she cried desperately, "please help - they're going to die, I saw, my visions - "  
  
Nicole finally looked at her with seriousness. "Are you sure? This isn't a joke?"  
  
"No!"  
  
"Then we can't do anything."  
  
"What?"  
  
"I'm serious, Emma," Nicole said quietly, leaning towards her, "magic isn't meant to solve what is meant to be. You've seen it, in your vision - this is meant to happen. We can't use magic to change it."  
  
"But - you can't be saying what I think you are. You want us to just walk away, not even try!"  
  
"No, not walk away, just - let it be."  
  
"Let it be? Is that supposed to make me feel better?"  
  
"Come on," said Nicole, drawing her wand out of her dress, "lets get out of here."  
  
But Emma had just spotted Doyle, coming out of a door. She ran up to him, tears streaming down her cheeks.  
  
"Edward!" she cried, putting her arms around his neck.  
  
"Miss Emma, what is it?"  
  
Emma looked at him, and kissed him sweetly. She pulled away, and whispered just audibly, "I love you, Edward Doyle. I'm so sorry."  
  
Before he could say anything else, she ran back to Nicole.  
  
"Just do it now. I can't stay any longer. Not if he's going to die."  
  
"Ok," said Nicole, "1,2,3."  
  
And with one last look at Doyle, her eyes brimming with tears, Emma apparated with Nicole out of the Titanic.  
  
Apart from Edward Doyle, who had seen them, no one knew what had happened to the Phoenix sisters. They were presumed, after the survivors were counted, to have drowned, perhaps with their suitors, Richard Ethson and Doyle, who were not recorded either.  
  
Little did any one know that they were back in England, living lives of guilt and pain, for what they had and hadn't done.  
  
Just as Nicole had, Emma never forgave her sister. Both sisters had lost the love of their lives, but at least Nicole's was still in this world. Emma in the end lived a life of despair and guilt for leaving Edward to drown.  
  
Sometimes it's hard to have magic.  
  
And sometimes its even harder to have it, and yet have to walk away, and let it be.  
  
Finis.  



End file.
